UNH men's hockey shuts down Vermont

DURHAM — With only two home games this month, the University of New Hampshire men’s hockey team had to make the most of a rare opportunity Saturday night at the Whittemore Center.

The Wildcats did that with a 4-0 win over Vermont to gain some momentum with a challenging four-game road trip ahead the next two weekends.

“It’s huge,” said UNH forward Austin Block, who scored twice against the Catamounts. “I think we should win at home every time we play here.”

No. 9 UNH (6-1-1, 4-1-1 in Hockey East) won its second straight following its only loss of the season a week ago at UMass.

The Wildcats, who improved to 5-0 at home this season, are in the midst of the stretch in which they play seven of eight games on the road.

“Our schedule right now is tough,” said UNH coach Dick Umile. “These next four games will be important, but I like where we’re at. We’re playing with some confidence.”

The line of Kevin Goumas, Grayson Downing and Block accounted for three goals and three assists Saturday night. Block scored twice and Downing once. Goumas had three assists as the Wildcats led 4-0 early in the third period.

“We got taught a lesson in how to play hockey tonight by the New Hampshire Wildcats,” said Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon, whose club fell to 1-3-2. “I thought Dick’s team played absolutely fantastic and I thought we were in amazement of their team tonight. We had a very, very poor effort. I think of the 10 categories that we try to win within a hockey game, UNH won nine out of those 10.”

UNH goalie Casey DeSmith made 25 saves for his third shutout in four games. He even contributed to the offense with an assist on the game’s first goal for his first career point.

DeSmith is the first UNH goalie to post back-to-back shutouts since Kevin Regan, who did it in March of 2007 against Providence in the quarterfinals of the Hockey East playoffs.

“I think it’s a combination of me seeing the puck really well and my team playing really, really well defensively in front of me,” DeSmith said. “They’ve been terrific the past four games. Once you get on a roll like this you start seeing the puck a little bit better, and when pucks aren’t going in you start thinking nothing’s going in.”

The Wildcats have allowed just two goals in their last four games.

“We played as well defensively as we’ve played,” Umile said. “I was pleased with the overall effort. We needed to play 60 minutes and finish the game and we did that tonight.”

Special teams did all the damage in the first period as UNH scored a shorthanded goal and a power-play goal to take a 2-0 lead after one. Downing scored his first goal of the season on a shorthanded breakaway on the Wildcats’ first shot at 5:27 of the first period.

Knodel made it 2-0 at 12:07 of the first with a power-play goal four seconds after UNH went on the man advantage. Knodel’s slap shot from 60 feet was his third goal of the season and second in two games.

The Wildcats had two goals on their first five shots.

“We scout our opponents beforehand,” Block said, “and we knew their goalie was a freshman. We knew he wasn’t as accustomed to maybe the college hockey game as some other players. Getting shots on net early was one of our goals.”

On Downing’s goal DeSmith made a save and cleared the puck to Goumas along the boards in the neutral zone.

Goumas pushed the puck ahead to Downing, who beat freshman goalie Brody Hoffman with a wrist shot from in tight.

On Knodel’s goal Greg Burke won the faceoff to Justin Agosta, who slid the puck over to his defense partner, who doubled the UNH lead with a bullet past Hoffman.

“I thought New Hampshire was first to loose pucks,” Sneddon said. “They were stronger on their sticks. They paid a price going to the net. They had it running tonight. We were very, very ineffective in everything we did. We got beat by a much better hockey team tonight.”

Block made it 3-0 early in the second period and 4-0 early in the third for his team-high sixth and seventh goals of the season.

The senior had five goals all of last year.

“Vermont stole one from us at home last year I remember,” DeSmith said. “So it was good to get this one so we have some momentum going into the tough road games we have coming up.”